General Sir William Lockhart GCB KCSI

Lockhart strikes a heroic pose for this photo taken before the Tirah Field Force went into action. It was published in the Navy and Army Illustrated on 29th Oct 1897 before news of the battles at Dargai. When the euphoria of the victory over the Afridis had died down it was realised that Lockhart had made a bad mistake in withdrawing the troops from the Heights on the 18th Oct after their initial success. The rest of the campaign was competently handled, greatly helped by the tribesmen's wariness of the Field Force after Dargai.
The caption refers to Lockhart as the Commander-in-Chief in India and that from 1890 he had been in charge of the army on the North-West Frontier. He served on the staff of the Black Mountain Expedition in 1864, he was road commandant in the Kyber Pass in the Afghan War of 1879-80, and on Lord Roberts's Staff in the fighting around Kabul.
William Stephen Alexander Lockhart was born in Lanarkshire on 2nd Sep 1841 and entered the Bengal Native Infantry in 1858. He served in the Indian Mutiny, the Bhutan Campaign, Abyssinia, and commanded a brigade in the 3rd Burmese War. He died on 18th Mar 1900.

Tirah Expedition